


this is what makes us girls

by chloeee



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22265656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chloeee/pseuds/chloeee
Summary: we all look for heaven and we put our love first, some that we'd die for it's a curse.orfive girls. five stories.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto, one sided relationship - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	this is what makes us girls

**Author's Note:**

> Basically Kishimoto can't write women so this is me following up on that pain train and fixing nothing. I actually love all of these characters so much and want so much better for all the girls but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how they were treated in canon. I guess my take on the girls following canon with a large serving of angst bc I like writing angst also I don't think I'm capable of writing anything else lol. Also yes I have an unhealthy obsession with infidelity SNS. I think it's the subconscious need to fix ch 700+.

_i._

A weaponsmith never sees the front line. Theirs is the job of providing tools for the warriors who protect the village day in and out. They are duty bound to stay alive and pass their craft down so generations forward can keep fighting with proper weapons and tools. There is no glory in being a weapons smith but there is pride to be found in that. Tenten learned this lesson before she can throw a shuriken straight.

Enrolling in the academy was the natural path to take before beginning her training in smithing. Understanding the ways of the ninjas who will be using the weapons she makes and learning the basics of how to use them is all a part of the tradition. 

Becoming a Genin is not. 

Her mother had been furious when she found out Tenten had signed up for Genin placement. By all rights she became a legal entity the minute she graduated from the academy but never in her mother's 36 years of life had she ever imagined her daughter would bring this kind of shame to their family's century old heritage. 

Tenten could never look past the idea of staying behind. She was born to live fast, die young. The glory of the Kunoichi and the legends they leave behind is what she longs for. She's looked up to Lady Tsunade since the day Iruka-sensei held that lecture on the history of the Sannin. 

Tsunade and her monster strength and medical expertise comparable to none. Tsunade and all her contributions to the village and their peace a tale worthy of songs.

No one ever tells the story of Tsunade the Drunkard who gave her everything to her two drifting teammates to keep them together. How after Orochimaru's betrayal she was never the same again, driven to a life of alcoholism and paranoia. Distrustful of all bonds. 

Tenten gets put on the same team as two boys who she grows to love and care for. She watches their struggles and keeps it all in, suffering as they suffer. She learns that in sickness and in health holds true not only in marriage. She watches Lee as he accepts his ultimate inability to perform ninjutsu and trains taijutsu even harder with him. She sees the way Neji's eyes hollow every Friday as he hardens himself to face the clan meetings on Saturday mornings, and stays out with him as late as possible so he doesn't have to go home. She sits by Lee's bedside after his surgery and cries next to Gai-sensei when lady Tsunade declares the surgery a success. She sees the forgiveness settle in Neji's bones after the chunin exam and holds all her boys' victories close to her heart. 

The glory of lady Tsunade the war hero, the legendary Kunoichi no longer drives her will as a shinobi. Instead, it is the bonds she has with Lee and Neji and Gai-sensei that keeps her going. 

No one ever told her the stories of Tsunade's sacrifice. 

No one ever told her how brave she would become in the face of death when the life of her boys are flashing in front of her eyes. No one ever told her that there is no glory on the front line, no glory in death. There is only darkness, and then nothing. 

_ii._

The Kazekage’s wife was a soft woman. She had a fragility to her movements that matched the melancholy hung gently around her brittle smiles. She came from a strong line of shinobi who have always been more loyal to their Kage than their blood. She carried within her generations of specifically bred genetics that could not protect her from the duties of breeding superior shinobis. Her blood was loyal to their Kazekage and that meant she was too.

Temari remembers her mother in passing flashes, a bed ridden woman who sometimes held her, but never for long. She remembers a blond woman who smiled a lot. She was certain her mother loved her. But her mothered loved her duty more, and with that love, she forfeited her life.

All that was left was her monstrous little brother. Disgusting little thing he was, small enough to fit between her father’s palm. He looked nothing like her. He was Wrong. Her mother could never love that Thing.

For the first ten years of Temari’s life, it was like he never existed. There was her, Kankurou her annoying little brother, and their caretaker. Sometimes there was father, but that was it. There was a monster that lurked the streets at night, killing people he crossed paths with, who screeched at random hours about blood and mother and it had absolutely nothing to do with her.

Then one day he becomes her responsibility. And suddenly, this psychotic bloodthirsty little demon is all she can think about. First she worries about him killing her in a moment of unhinged madness. Then she worries about him killing unsanctioned people in a moment of unhinged madness. She also worries a lot about him compromising missions of course, but mostly she worries about him killing people, namely her. Her little brother Kankurou is as useless as a block of brick and sees nothing in that swirling cesspool of madness except for a monster he cannot beat, but Temari knows that that’s her little brother. That’s her _baby brother._ Even if Temari is having a hard time believing her mother cared for him, she loved that thing enough to die for it and there _had_ to be meaning in that somewhere.

The Chunin exam in Konoha is a mess from beginning to end. Temari respects her Kazekage but the plan to invade Konoha had sounded like a cockpit of shit the second her father gave her the mission. Of course Temari is right and the next time she sees her father he’s rotting in a pit with larvae crawling out of his eye sockets.

Gaara completely loses it and Temari, in the face of a clearly higher force, grabs Kankurou by the neck and fears for their insignificant little fucking lives.

(It’s not until years later that her baby brother, her _baby_ , told her that Uzumaki Naruto decked him in the face and he woke up for the first time in his life)

Gaara changes. And suddenly Temari sees the broken little boy behind the cracking sand. This little soul with no one’s love, who lost the ability to care, and chose to love only himself because he was the only one he could trust.

Temari sees the little monster who used to feed his sand blood, then she blinks and she sees her Kazekage, her baby brother who still sometimes look so lost faced with the world and she wishes she could reach out at whatever is making him so upset and make it all go away.

Gaara heals and learns what it means to be shinobi. He makes connections with people – each personal, special – and learns what it means to be human. He tries sleeping once, before abandoning that thought immediately after he wakes up screaming bloody murder about mother and father and Yashamaru, terrified out of his mind that one day he will snap and slaughter everyone.

Temari spends her life recompensing for the wrongs the world has bestowed upon her baby brother. Gaara might’ve been a monster, but now he is her baby, and she will protect him.

_iii._

Sometimes Hinata looks into the eyes of the man she married and she wonders where he is. 

She lies on her side with her hands curling gently. Naruto next to her. Eyes wide, staring off into space. Hinata looks at him and tries to will the direction of his attention towards her. _Please, even if it’s just a little bit, just turn around, please._

He notices nothing. 

She often thinks of the boy she fell in love with, all sunshine smiles and unbreakable will. The one who, in the face of impossible odds, screamed at the top of his lungs, that he’s going to prove all of them wrong.

He gave her strength to keep going when her father told her she was useless. He gave her power to clench her jaws and keep pushing when her clan decided she will not be heir. Little Hinata loved Uzumaki Naruto so much. She still loves him.

She wishes she can be by his side always. Support him always, and watch him blossom into a man worthy of the burden he chooses to carry. Hinata loves him with the selfless perseverance of one who knows they will never matter. Quietly, she’s thankful to whatever god out there who granted her the weak constitution that made her the abandoned Hyuuga heir, and gave her the opportunity to marry this man.

Let it be known that Hyuuga Hinata may not have been given a lot of choices in life but this? She chose. She married Uzumaki Naruto and that was her choice. She stood to lose nothing, and her choice gave her everything. Naruto is everything she has every wanted and being his wife granted her the right to stand by his side for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. She will love him and keep him, even if he is not hers to have.

Hyuuga Hinata chose, and on that day she walked down the aisle, and married a boy who didn’t understand why rumors of infidelity swirl around him where ever he goes. That boy is a part of him and Hinata can never fault her love for that. She will try to love that boy also, till the end of her days, while she feels a little part of her heart crush every time she sees him. Because she stood to lose nothing, and her choice gave her _everything._

It is an advantageous match. Everyone and their mother across the shinobi world knows Uzumaki Naruto is to be the Seventh Hokage. Uzumaki Naruto, the war hero who has saved not only the village but the world at the brink of human extinction. Uzumaki Naruto who has superb lineage and friendly connections across the lands. Uzumaki Naruto who is undoubtedly in love with someone else, someone who cannot give him an heir.

Hinata is useless as an heiress but marrying _The_ Hokage? That will secure the Hyuuga’s clan standings for decades to come. The world will fawn over the beautiful couple and their beautiful children to her face, while whispering about the indiscretions of their Hokage behind her back. Hinata will not bend. She will not bow. Hinata made her choice and she has everything.

Unknowingly, Hinata becomes the whore her father never had the face to tell her to be. 

_iv._

Yamanakas are bred ninjas. Their skills in strategies a vital part of the system that keeps the village’s heart pumping, blood flowing. 

Ino's father had wanted a son to inherit the Yamanaka legacy, to carry on the torch of their family. He got Ino instead. Ino who is smart and beautiful and lethal and deadly, the best Kunoichi in their graduating class. 

Ino who is not a son. 

She knows her father wants a male heir, so she becomes more beautiful and stupid and elegant and agreeable, becomes a non-combatant kunoichi so her hands stay soft and her figure stays trim. Ino scurries off to find herself a husband and get breeding, someone above her class with an even higher echelon name. Only Uchiha Sasuke will do. A main-branch Hyuuga would have been fine as well, shame about that Hyuuga Neji.

In the end Uchiha Sasuke is as gay as they come with some higher-power-meant-to-be soulmate if that bullshit even exists, Sakura got to push his baby, and Ino marries a no-name ex-anbu. A war orphan with no identity. She likes him because he thinks the sun shines out of her asshole and she really likes the feeling of finally being fucking _enough_ for once.

Her father doesn’t come to the wedding.

_v._

There are three things in Sakura’s life she knows for certain.

  1. Her name is Haruno Sakura and she is a proud kunoichi of Konoha. She is a student of the legendary Sannin Tsunade and member of Konoha’s Team 7.
  2. Uchiha Sasuke is the love of her life.
  3. The village of Konoha is filled to the brim with beautiful women, luscious haired, curvaceous, tiny waisted women, with wide bambi eyes and demur pouts, who can bat their fanning lashes twice and have people falling at their feet offering them promises to conquer worlds. Sakura is not one of them.



Sakura is an accomplished kunoichi trained to take over the village’s medical unit by the best medic who has ever lived. She is battle hardened with muscles and calluses to match. To top it all off, a temper worse than the most hot-blooded of warriors.

No one will sing songs about the beauty of Haruno Sakura, the forgotten fourth member of Team 7. Why would they, when they could be writing prose about the Jinchuriki who challenged all odds and saved the world, the last Uchiha who brought honor to his name, or the legendary copy-nin who could copy any ninjutsu at the drop of a hat? Sakura is not beautiful enough for this world, where a woman’s beauty is everything that matters about her. 

Uchiha Sasuke is the love of Sakura’s life, but she is not his. And she knows, she knows there are reasons that is not so, reasons that are completely out of her control that has absolutely nothing to do with her, but there are things Sakura _knows_ that she cannot admit. In Sakura’s mind, she is not beautiful enough for Sasuke’s affections and that’s that. She can grow her hair and cut her hair and put on makeup and change her clothes but at the end of the day, she is not enough.

Uchiha Sasuke is perfection personified and if he does not love her there _must_ be something wrong with her. If only she is skinnier, her eyes bigger, her hair straighter, her pout fuller, her personality softer – maybe Sasuke would look her way. Sakura, the smartest kunoichi of her graduating class, can never truly understand, truly and fully, that Sasuke will never look her way no matter how much _more_ she is because she is not _him_.

Uchiha Sasuke is the love of her life and he doesn’t love her back and Haruno Sakura can never live with this fact hanging over her heart. So Sakura gains Sasuke's affection the only way she knows how, by giving him the one thing He cannot. 

Uchiha Sarada is born on a warm spring evening as the sun is setting. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom and Sakura takes that as a sign of the gods blessing her for her hard work and tenacity in the face of true love. When the medic-nin on duty wraps Sarada's wrinkly little body in a pink blanket and hands her to Sakura, she stares down in wonder at the life she had just created and imagines the dark eyes that will one day turn red. Her daughter, but Sasuke’s too. She watches as Sasuke gives a tiny smile, warm like the setting sun, and brushes his lips lightly against both her and _their_ daughter’s forehead. 

"Thank you," he whispers, before he leaves the hospital ward, Naruto grinning at his side. 

**Author's Note:**

> title and summary from "This Is What Makes Us Girls" by LDR


End file.
